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“Digital Holland” Initiative Puts Community History Online

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The story of Holland is only as far away as the nearest Internet connection, thanks
to an ongoing project coordinated through the Mellon Scholars Program at Hope College.

Launched earlier this summer, the online “Digital Holland” initiative features articles,
photographs, interactive maps, audio files and even video highlighting multiple dimensions
of the history of the Holland area. The index for the project literally runs from
“A” through “Y” currently, but the organizers intend for it to continue to grow, making
it all but certain that the coverage will eventually extend to “Z” as well.

“Our plan is to expand it,” said Hope senior Allyson Hoffman of Marshall, who is the
student director of the project. “There are about 150 pieces right now. We’re pleased
to have that, but would like to have more.”

The mix so far includes topics ranging from the Holland Armory; to L. Frank Baum (author
of the “Wizard of Oz,” who summered at Macatawa); to Fiesta; to Hope College’s oldest
building, Van Vleck Hall. Among other specific highlights, maps show the city in
the first part of the 20th century, while scans of postcards show early views of Centennial
Park and a digitized recording provides a chance to hear Margaret Van Vyven’s song
“Tulip Time in Holland.”

Some of the narrative content has been prepared specifically for the site, while some
is previously developed material, such as articles written for the quarterly newsletter
of the Joint Archives of Holland. In many cases, links direct visitors to additional
resources.

Hoffman and Hope juniors Ian Bussan of Niles and Erika Schlenker of Troy developed
the site this summer with the mentorship of Dr. William Pannapacker, who is a professor
of English and director of the college’s Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Scholars Program,
and Geoffrey Reynolds, who is the Mary Riepma Ross Director of the Joint Archives
of Holland. The three students also conducted research for and wrote some of the
new content, along with multiple other Hope students and a high school student interning
with the Joint Archives.

Hoffman, Bussan and Schlenker have all been involved as participants in the Mellon
Scholars Program, which was established in 2010 and has been supported through two
grants from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. The program involves select students
in the arts and humanities in coursework and research in areas of scholarly interest
with faculty mentors from a variety of academic disciplines, with a particular emphasis
on teaching them how to use new and emerging digital technologies in pursuing and
sharing their work. Students join as sophomores, and the members of the new cohort
this fall will be developing articles for the site through their initial work in the
program.

Some of the others who wrote this summer were also Mellon Scholars, but it’s not a
requirement. In fact, Hoffman and Schlenker, who will be leading an editorial board
responsible for coordinating the project, are hoping that members of the community
who enjoy area history and scholarship will opt to contribute to the site as well.
The website includes guidelines for how to become involved.

Pannapacker noted that “Digital Holland” was inspired by the American Guide Series
that was developed by the Federal Writers’ Project during the 1930s and early 1940s
to share the stories of states and individual communities, a model that he long felt
could be applied well, and even more effectively, given the capabilities of digital
technology.

“This project is all about the potential for faculty-student collaboration, personal
interactivity and crowdsourcing—engaging the local community,” he said. “We had the
dream of a ‘Digital Holland’ project even before we approached the foundation for
our initial grant, so the launch is a big deal for us.”

Pannapacker, a member of the Hope faculty since 2000, has been involved at the national
level for several years in encouraging the use of digital tools in teaching and research
in the arts, humanities and social sciences, the better to prepare students for their
post-college careers. In addition to his teaching at Hope, for the past year he has
also been the faculty director of the Digital Liberal Arts Initiative of the Great
Lakes Colleges Association (GLCA), of which Hope is a member. He sees “Digital Holland”
as a natural for replication, both as a learning experience and as a chronicle of
the unique communities in which those colleges reside.

“We hope that this project will serve as a resource for the community of Holland,
but our vision is to extend the model to the other 12 GLCA colleges and have it expand
to include communities across the Great Lakes as student and faculty collaborators
at other institutions develop similar resources of their own,” he said.